Clock City

by Rebekah Dodson

  “Tonight, I’m on duty.” His voice held a note of caution. “Victor had a vision.”

  Sebastian gasped. I stepped closer to them both.

  “He what?” Sebastian spoke before I could.

  “He saw you approaching the gates, of being captured yet again. He immediately ensured I was on shift tonight.”

  “What of Lady Bailia?” Sebastian asked. “How does she fare?”

  “Still makes the damn best pies in the land.” Edwin chuckled.

  “I hate to interrupt,” I said, “but shouldn’t we get somewhere a little more covered, before we exchange pleasantries?”

  “Agreed, mistress.” Dinga slid his dagger away but stayed close to me all the same.

  Edwin nodded curtly. “Let’s go.”

  We followed him to the city, a shorter distance than we were able to see in the dark. The walls loomed in front of us, black as midnight in the gloomy air. Up ahead, I spotted the edges of a silver gate, small enough to fit only one person at a time.

  Edwin punched four bricks into the right side, and they lit up with a dark blue glow. The gate clicked, and he pushed it open. “After you, Queen Alayna,” he motioned me.

  We filed through, Edwin last, and the gate clicked shut behind him. I turned and looked; the wall was seamless, as if no door had ever shut behind us.

  I examined our path ahead. We stood in a murky alley with windows high up on each side. Sebastian stepped beside me. “The Commons,” he whispered, “is where the other side of the city lives.”

  I remembered seeing the woman in rags in her windowsill, clinging to a man in only tattered suspenders and breeches, on my first foray into the city. It seemed like a century ago, when it had only been a day. How different it had been, escorted by knights, where crowds had parted. Now we had resorted to sneaking through a hidden entrance.

  With a twinge of guilt, I wondered if my father would be proud of me. I could hear him in my head: once a thief, always a thief.

  For just a moment I pondered if he would even notice I was gone. Had he put out an APB on me with the police? Or did he just think I was another screw up run away like so many he’d had cross his desk before?

  Edwin led us along the winding alleyways, ducking left and then right. I had to focus on keeping up with him and Sebastian, who apparently knew exactly where we were going. Too late, I realized I’d never be able to make it bake to that special door in the wall, and I couldn’t even open it if I wanted to. If these cousins led me into a trap, well, I was a sitting duck.

  Finally, Edwin halted before a bronze door with wooden handles. Before he pulled it open the smell of simmering berries and warm bread hit me. My stomach rumbled. I hadn’t eaten anything for over a day.

  “Ah, the bakery,” Sebastian said, “how I missed this place.”

  “You’ve only been gone two days.” Edwin chuckled.

  “Aye, but three days without Bailia’s hotcakes and Cornish pasties is an eternity.”

  “Who is Bailia?” I asked, remembering Sebastian had asked of her before.

  “Our—” Edwin began, trailing off and looking at Sebastian for an answer.

  “Mother,” Sebastian finished.

  “Well, not really,” Edwin added. “She’s like a mother to the urchins like ‘Bastian and me.” He jostled Sebastian’s shoulder. “Remember when she caught us putting mice on the bread?”

  Sebastian chuckled softly, but pressed a finger to his lips.

  Edwin nodded.

  Sebastian tapped a brick to the right of the door and it lit up pale yellow. With a crackle, the brick projected out from the wall, spun three times, and then sank back into place just like a regular brick again.

  Edwin turned to me. “Victor made it for him especially. Only he can open it with his power.”

  “You don’t share abilities?” I asked him, adding, “I know he controls light and energy, so do you throw fireballs, chuck water, or something?”

  Edwin shook his head. “Sadly, no. I wish I had Sebastian’s power, thought. It has gotten us out of many scrapes in the last few years.”

  I wondered if later he’d tell me a story about one of them. I was intrigued.

  Dinga hopped beside. “Mistress, it’s too dark out here.”

  “This way,” Sebastian motioned us to duck through the door that didn’t seem wide enough to fit any of us. Edwin went first and I nudged Dinga—better him than me if this was a trap, he had a weapon after all—down a short corridor. I could see light at the end, as the door slid shut behind Sebastian who was on my heels. The corridor spit us into a tiny room, a foyer of sorts. The room was empty except for an ornate rug in the center of the floor and a lamp in the corner. The gas lamp on a stand illuminated the room, throwing shadows across the low ceiling. On the other side of the room was something akin to a barn door; with a top that slid open independent of the bottom.

  An old woman poked her head through the open top half of the door. She held a lamp high over her head, and I winced at the light that was much brighter than the gas lamp. “Who goes there?”

  I finally got a good look at her. She had steel gray hair piled messily on the back of her wide head, with curly tendrils framing her face. Narrow glasses perched at the end of her chubby, blunt nose, and her lined eyes were tired and weary. She was wrapped in a white gown that covered her broad frame.

  “It’s me, Mother,” Sebastian answered her. “And Edwin, plus some others.”

  The bottom door flipped open and she skirted through, her gown swishing as she rushed up to us. “Sebastian, my dear boy!” She announced, but then hushed herself. “We were so terrified to hear of the accusations, but then your escape! How ever did you escape?”

  “It was with the help of this little fella,” Sebastian replied and stepped to the side so the woman could see me and Dinga. “Bailia, may I present Dinga, of the Zespar tribe, and Alayna, the ‘imposter.’” He scoffed a little at that, shaking his head.

  I wanted to glare at him, but I remembered my manners as my mother taught me. I smiled instead and bowed my head. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

  “Likewise, milady,” Bailia handed the lamp to Edwin, and came forward, exchanging her own curtsy. She looked at Dinga. “A Zespar! My, aren’t you a cute thing. I’ve never seen one of you up close.”

  Dinga narrowed his beady eyes at her. “Dinga does not like being called cute.”

  “It’s alright, Dinga,” I said, patting him on the head. He responded with a tongue-filled grin.

  “Bailia, though not my actual mother, is the closest thing to it,” Sebastian supplied, “and she does make bloody good pies.” He looked to Bailia. “And Dinga is braver than any of us.”

  “’Tis true,” Edwin added, “he had me on my back with a dagger at my throat.”

  “Oh dear!” Bailia laughed. “What a ferocious demon.”

  Dinga glared at up me as if no one would ever take him seriously. The feeling is mutual, buddy, I wanted to say.

  “We heard the queen had returned,” Bailia was saying to me. “But you look younger than her, yes indeed.”

  “She merely bears a resemblance, Mother,” Edwin whispered. “We have yet to get to the bottom of it.”

  “And get to the bottom of it we shall. Victor waits for you below.”

  Before I could ask what she meant by below, Bailia set about moving the chairs to the corner of the room, and like they’d done it a dozen times before, the boys tipped the table up and set it aside. The rug easily rolled up, revealing a hidden door with a large iron ring at one end.

  Edwin threw up the handle as Bailia held the lamp over the stairs. A dozen crumbling steps led into the darkness, but a light shone dimly at the bottom.

  Darky, murky, and musky. A pit? A lair? Who knows what could eat me then?

  “Oh no, I’m not going down there,” I protested. I backed up, Dinga clinging to my leg.

  Sebastian started down, a ball of light in one hand. He offered his other to me. “Do you trust m
e?”

  I shouldn’t. I didn’t want to. But leather bond at his wrist reminded me we were in this together. If anything happened to me, it happened to him. So I couldn’t be in danger, right?

  God, I hoped I was right.

  I took his hand.

  Dinga followed gingerly behind me, the hop gone from his step and replaced with slow cautiousness.

  “You’ll arrange the table?” Edwin asked Bailia.

  She didn’t answer, and I assume she nodded, as I heard him peck her lightly on the cheek. “The best Ma a bloke could ask for.”

  We had nearly reached the bottom step when Edwin closed the hatch firmly behind me. The only light we had now was Sebastian’s.

  “Sebastian, are you sure about this?” I whispered as we reached the dirt floor. The walls around us were studded with rock and crumbling plaster, looking fragile indeed, but we could only see a few feet ahead of us.

  “Alayna, I’ve known these men all my life. This is the safest place we could be right now. Or would you rather we be back with the keeper?”

  The room brightened then with a whoosh as the gas lamps around us sputtered to life, trailing down the hallway. I gasped at the well-timed lighting, like it was a special effect in a movie. I could see the light reflect off Sebastian’s brown eyes.

  Even after the last few days of horror, he was still as handsome as the first day I had seen him on the streets of the city. How far we had come from the night in the prison to this point!

  “Okay, I trust you,” I could hardly believe I’d uttered those words. I barely knew him. I barely knew Dinga, and he’d all but die for me already.

  We walked a little way, past about twenty lamps. Since each lamp was about a foot apart, we didn’t have far to go. Then the tunnel opened into a huge room, with a long table which seated twenty or more. Faded tapestries hung on the wall with a few looming art scenes depicting rivers, valleys, and bridges. The walls were white plaster, cracked here and there, eroded chunks missing near the vaulted ceiling. At the very top, the silver moonlight shone through a steel grate. Probably at street level.

  A surreal feeling washed over me again, that I really was stuck in a movie. It was a last supper, a final meal, a meeting of the main characters. What was I getting myself into?

  At the table sat three men and two women, all dressed in the finery I had seen in the city yesterday. The women wore long dresses and with petticoats brushing the ground, while the men were decked in gray vests with shining silver timepieces and ornate canes leaning near them. They each wore top hats of varying heights perched on their heads.

  They all turned and stared at me, unblinking. I froze, wondering if they were robots. If the mines held them, surely this room might? One of the younger women, her platinum blonde hair pinned behind her head, glared at me with narrowed eyes and finally batted her eyes. “This is nonsense; she looks nothing like the queen.”

  “Nay. The resemblance is remarkable,” the older woman next to her said softly. I could barely make out her face behind a thick ivory lace cover draped down from the delicate yellow hat pinned to her dark gray curls.

  “A big younger, perhaps,” said the man at her right, the one with the shortest hat.

  They broke into soft chatter, talking over themselves in a chittering blend of voices. It was just quiet enough I couldn’t hear, and it was driving me insane, like listening to mice on the other side of a door. Edwin and Sebastian stood on either side of me, arms crossed in front of them. Dinga stood in front and to my left, hopping on one foot and spinning in circles.

  “Enough,” the man at the end announced, his voice booming across the room. He stood and grabbed his cane, flipping the tallest top hat onto his head. His hair was black and spackled with gray, leading into long muttonchops on each side to a close-cropped gray beard. He was tall, much taller than Sebastian, likely well over six feet in height.

  “My father, Victor Cross,” Edwin leaned in to whisper to me. Sebastian closed his hand around mine, and gently squeezed.

  “Come, take a seat, all of you,” his voice echoed off the fragile walls.

  I noticed the oversized oak chairs were plush, padded with crimson seats, and had dragon’s wings carved into the headrests. My legs didn’t want to work, but Sebastian pulled me alongside him and I couldn’t resist. I took a seat at the opposite end, with Edwin and Sebastian on either side. Dinga hopped into my lap. As soon as I took my seat, so did everyone else.

  Victor Cross’s long slender legs propelled him away from the table and toward me. He stopped so close to me I could smell his breath—cloves, cinnamon, and pipe tobacco. It was a faraway memory, something familiar, but yet something I couldn’t put my finger on.

  I shivered, feeling what my mother called deja vue washing over me. I’d met this man somewhere before. Or had I?

  “Stand,” he commanded, as he tipped his cane under my chin. I had to oblige. “Hold your head high, my dear.” His voice was soft this time, and up close his eyes were a warm gray. Like mine.

  I had visions of my grandfather, who’d died when I was young, and how he used to read me bedtime stories in the same tone. He’d had the same long side burns, too. I always thought he was old fashioned, too.

  It was then that I recognized the key. It hung on a silver chain around Victor’s neck, and shifted slightly as he took the cane away from my chin. It wasn’t an ordinary key. The base was made of extended silver dragon wings, and a clock face with numbers and cogs was fixed at the top.

  The clock exactly matched the one engraved into the hilt of the dagger I wore at my side.

  The one that had brought me here.

  I held my head up, and the women at the table covered their faces with handkerchiefs. It was strange to me, although I figured it was polite to them. All except for the old woman with her face covered, I noticed. She simply turned her head and looked at me. There was something familiar about her I couldn’t pinpoint. Something...

  “It IS her!”

  “The queen!”

  “Back from the dead!”

  “We heard the Timekeeper disposed of her!”

  I felt ready to swoon. My head still ached from our encounter with Edwin. Sebastian’s hand was warm and welcome, a source of strength. I looked to him, and then back to the man who loomed over me.

  He smiled, a pert grin that quickly disappeared. He turned on his heels to face the table, “It is not the queen.”

  A ripple of gasps and grumbles rolled through the group. “I knew it.” and “I supposed as much” echoed off the plaster walls.

  The woman with the shrouded face stood and threw back the lace onto her hat.

  “She is, however, the queen’s daughter. My daughter.”

  “Mom?”

  Chapter Nine: Truths

  STARTLED, I STEPPED back, my shins hitting something hard behind me. The heavy padded chair tumbled over behind me with a crash. “You can’t be. You’re dead!”

  “I am alive and well here.” Her eyes were full of sadness as she spoke in a near whisper. “Though I am a bit older than you would have imagined, now.”

  Dinga’s voice snapped me back to reality. “How can the queen be your life-giver, mistress? Is she from another realm like yours?”

  I couldn’t believe it. I had to look twice, and once more again.

  She more resembled a grandmother I never knew. She was twenty years older than I remembered, with creases at the edge of her eyes, but had the same pointed nose, the same dark hair as I, though hers was edged with gray at the temples. The same smile as was in the portrait of her and my father that hung at home.

  “Your mother, Lydia, was daughter to King Alexander,” Victor said softly, his arms crossing across his chest. “She is heir to the throne.”

  “What?” I couldn’t take my eyes from my mother, frozen where I was like when the Timekeeper was in the room, though I knew better. “But I thought she just showed up one day. She was.... You mean, she was born here?”

  �
�Yes,” my mother offered.

  “Sebastian?” I gave him a pointed look. “Why didn’t you tell me she was alive?”

  “I didn’t know.” He looked just as alarmed as I felt.

  “Mistress?” Dinga whimpered, an arm around my leg.

  I shushed him.

  “Yes, I was born here, as heir to Elestra’s throne.” he pushed in her chair and walked toward me. “There’s something you need to know. My father, my family, we are travelers. My father loved visiting our world. Alayna, especially the World’s Fair in nineteen-o-four. He lost me there when I was a little girl, and I forgot about him. It wasn’t until I was eighteen we found me again and brought me home, here, to Elestra.”

  I just stared at her, trying to blink. My eyes burned with the info I tried to sort in my head. Travelers, between worlds. What? The fair, 1904?

  “You’re a hundred years old? How was that even possible?” I gaped at her.

  “Alayna, I’m sorry I never told you. The line of kings gives us a long life. When I met your father, well, he was such a different person.”

  “It’s been five years!” I exploded, screaming at her. “You left me five years ago! Do you know what he did to me?”

  My mother wouldn’t look down. She held her head up, meeting my gaze fiercely. “I didn’t know, Alayna, I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”

  “This is your fault. Yours. You ruined my life. You never did anything to stop what he did to me!”

  “Believe me, I tried!” Her voice was strained as she approached me, her arms open. “Alayna, I’ve been in the same dungeon you escaped from for five years. Why do you think I’ve aged so? When you used the marlita it freed me and Victor.”

  Behind me, another heavy chair tumbled to the floor. Edwin was scrambling to right the bulky chair, the clatter interrupting my thoughts.

  “Stop!” I yelled. I leaned forward with my palms on the table in front of me. “My mother worked for a vacuum sales company and was always gone, earning a meager living my father squandered on booze! How could she, you, be from here? How could you not tell me I was some kind of fucked up royalty?” I gripped the sides of my head then. “This can’t be happening. I’m going crazy!”